Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Bush Calls for Oil Use Reduction

Where have we heard this before? Oh yeah, last years state of the union address and he hasn't done anything about it. But here is what disturbs me about this statement year after year. Yeah it sounds good but really he just wants people to continue driving, continue sprawling and have folks not make any sacrifices or hard choices. His call tonight is going to be for alternative fuels for cars, fuels that still need petroleum in some way to succeed, and fuels that still allow us to sprawl.

Bush wants 20%? I think we can do better than that. Alan Drake already says 10% can be done easily through transport electrification. Changing vehicle standards can add even more and incentives for workers to use transit instead of their cars would push consumption down even further. Bush will talk about congestion pricing but what about a larger gas tax. But why can't we do it? Because there are still too many incentives to get in your car and drive, too many neighborhoods where your car is the only way around and too many reasons for the government lobby to just say lets just keep doing what we are doing. So as Bush tells us tonight we need to cut down on oil consumption but keep on driving, just know that his suggestions aren't pushing people to stop sprawl which is a major consumer of our energy and land.

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